


What Purpose Her Service

by Lassarina



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-10
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/pseuds/Lassarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What purpose her service, when all that held it has been tarnished?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Purpose Her Service

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on AreYouGame at Dreamwidth, "mirror - you remind me of myself."

It is a thing unbecoming a woman of faith, but to be absolved of one's sins, one must confess. Since no father confessor would be found anywhere near this band of heretics, she can confess only to God.

Meliadoul is jealous of Agrias Oaks.

Not of looks, or skill with a blade—though Agrias has those in plenty—nor yet money.

Meliadoul envies Agrias her certainty.

"What do you follow?" she asks Agrias one night on the journey to Mullonde. The Princess was raised in a monastery, and Agrias must have been a woman of some faith to be assigned to Ovelia in so close a capacity; therefore she too must have some idea of what it is like to leave the church behind and try to find new meaning.

"Follow?" Agrias looks up from the leather strap she is mending, pale fingers flashing against dark leather and steel dulled with use.

"You are— _we_ are heretics. It is apparent that you no longer follow Glabados." Meliadoul rests her hands flat against the sides of her legs so that her fingers will not twist together. "What, then, do you follow?"

Agrias studies her for a moment, then jerks her head to the side as though to indicate Meliadoul should be seated on one of the rocks nearby. Meliadoul picks the flattest and presses her palms against the tops of her knees. She is as nervous as before her first vows.

"I follow Ramza," Agrias says, "because he is a good man, and a good leader." She bends over her work again, the needle flashing in the firelight as she stitches the edge of the strap. "No, I no longer follow Glabados. The church has naught for me; it has failed me and the Princess both."

Meliadoul flinches, but she cannot argue the truth of Agrias's words. "And I," she says, more to herself than to Agrias.

Agrias nods, and the needle flashes as she loops back on her own stitches to finish off the line. She starts on the other side. "You seek a new belief," she says.

"Do you dare preach the joys of heresy?" Meliadoul came here seeking aid, but she will not suffer insult.

Agrias looks up then, and her expression is so flat, her eyes so endlessly dark, that Meliadoul's breath catches in her throat and prevents any further words from clawing free. "If you think this joy, I question your perception," Agrias says, and it is both worse than Meliadoul thought and gentler than she likely deserves. "I am here not for a lark, but because it is the right thing to do. I have lost the shelter of patronage, as you have; I have lost the person I love and admire before all others. The absence of the church in my life does not make null my commitment to my vows."

Agrias goes back to stitching the leather, and Meliadoul considers her words. She has ever followed the Church; she felt the call of templar's vows when she was still a girl. She has always had first her father's words to guide her, and then the father confessor's. She does not know how to uphold her vows without those strictures.

She watches Agrias's needle. The motion is soothing. Strange, to associate a soothing feeling with a tool of war.

"Does it get easier?" she asks, after a time.

Agrias completes the line of stitches and loops back once more, and her little belt knife glints in the firelight as she cuts off this thread. Severed in an eyeblink, like Meliadoul's service, and not by the quick bright flash of the honest sword, but rather the dark and poisoned blade of betrayal. Agrias grips the leather in both hands and pulls, a quick sharp jerk, but the strap holds.

"Aye, and nay," she says, looking not at Meliadoul but at the steel in her lap. "You grow...accustomed to giving your own orders, to choosing for yourself. It becomes habit." She pauses, and runs her fingers over the leather absently. "Much like training, if it becomes too easy, you have fallen into a bad pattern."

Meliadoul considers this as the fire crackles between them, joined by the grating scratching noises as Agrias rubs dirt and grime and blood from her breastplate. When the steel shines like silver again, Agrias sets aside the breastplate and rises, her head tipped back to mark the hour by the stars. "It is my watch," she says.

"Thank you," Meliadoul says hastily, not wanting to be thought ungrateful.

Agrias rests a hand on her shoulder, smelling of leather and oil and honest sweat, and Meliadoul curls her hands into fists. "You need not rearrange all your guiding stars in the space of a month," Agrias says, more gently than Meliadoul thinks she deserves. "The path does come clear, in time."

"I mean no disrespect," Meliadoul says, looking at the fire and not at Agrias because she cannot say this if she sees those eyes looking into her, "but why take the time to explain to me? I am grateful, but..."

Agrias laughs, if only a little, and the sound makes Meliadoul's heart flutter in a way unbecoming of a templar. "Because I see myself, a year ago," she says, and squeezes Meliadoul's shoulder gently. "You will find that to which you wish to bind your service again," she says, "whether it be here with Ramza or elsewhere."

She leaves to take her watch, and Meliadoul watches the fire, wishing she could be so certain.


End file.
